Mr. DeWolf

Through all the years of my scholastic endeavors I have had a lot of teachers. Some were good, some were bad, most were just average. If you are lucky you have one instructor that makes an impact on you for the rest of your life. For me that teacher was Mr. DeWolf who was my history teacher at Argo.

We hit it off right away for some reason. Mr. DeWolf was a Viet Nam vet who was injured in combat when a tank he was in ran over a landmine. For the rest of his life to my knowledge he would have issues with loud noises. Which, you may think makes getting into teaching a curious career choice. But, he was born to be a teacher. American History could have been the most boring class I ever had, but because of Mr. DeWolf it would become the most interesting.

He didn’t lecture, he told stories. There is an art form to that and few were better than he was. It was easy to get him sidetracked and talking about his days in Nam. But, I learned more about that war and gained respect for not only him but everyone that got drafted and got sent over there to fight in that quagmire just by hearing him tell his personal accounts of what went on.

I was sixteen and I have to admit I was at the time not the best student. I was always joking around and at first didn’t really pay attention. But, that is how good Mr. DeWolf was. He somehow was able to spark an interest in the material he was teaching our class and it spoke to me. It got to the point where I actually enjoyed his lectures and going to his class.

That year we learned all about our past from the Revolutionary War all the way to Nam. Ted Karp, another student in the class and I got him talking about Rambo, the Stallone sequel to First Blood that had come out and was now on video. Somehow we got him to show our class the movie which I am sure if the powers that be knew, would have gotten him in trouble. But, he trusted us not to go blabbing about it and we never said a word.

I enjoyed his class so much that I wanted to make sure I had him again my senior year so, I took his World History course the next semester. That same year, I got into some trouble from time to time and had to serve some Saturday detentions. Mr. DeWolf was often charged with sitting with us on those Saturdays. The objective of a detention was to punish a student but with Mr. DeWolf it was difficult.

Those Saturday’s while we were supposed to be quiet and reading he would instead engage me in a conversation. We talked sports a lot. He was of course a huge Bears fan but he was also that rare breed on the south side, a Cubs fan as well. This was when the Bears were the God’s of the sport so it was high times and we enjoyed discussing the team often.

We also talked about other things as well. I told him I worked at White Hen and he often would joke with me that, if he didn’t get a course to teach over the summer he would have to go to work with me there. We discussed movies and lightly on politics. At that point in my life I didn’t care about anything political or history in general. But, after two years with Mr. DeWolf that all changed. I was interested in the subject matter because he made the subject matter interesting.

Eventually I graduated and left Argo and like I said, never had that kind of an interaction with a teacher again. I never forgot Mr. DeWolf but it had been years since I had seen him. Then one day somewhere on the internet, (I think this was in the days of MySpace) I read that he had passed away. A sadness washed over me. He taught thousands of kids in his time at Argo. I sat there hoping he knew before he died what an impact he had on those students. To this day, I am somewhat of a political junkie and love reading about our history and that all stems from him. He impacted my life and made me a better person. I am very grateful I got to be lectured by him, and wish he was still around so I could have told him in person.